"Faith challenges the underpinnings of legal education."

So said Dean David Rudenstine of Cardozo Law School (which is part of a religious university, Yeshiva University). Story here; an excerpt:

In a provocative address last week to some 200 undergraduate counselors from northeastern universities, the dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law warned of a "collision course with democratic order and social unity" as politically outspoken religious leaders wield increasing influence over the nation's public policy.

Dean David Rudenstine, himself a political activist in the 1960s as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and like-minded groups, further suggested that U.S. jurisprudence and legal education were "very much on the defensive," in part because strict secularism as a legal paradigm is seen by the faithful — including some at Christian law schools — as an insufficient context for policy issues such as abortion rights, homosexual marriage, stem-cell research and Darwin's theory of evolution.

Mr. Rudenstine said that America's law schools have a social responsibility, especially at a time of religious fundamentalism, to foster reasoned debate over the facts and science of such controversial matters. To shirk this role, he suggested, would be to leave the way clear for faith-based organizations to impose "divisive" views.

"Faith challenges the underpinnings of legal education," Mr. Rudenstine declared. "Faith is a willingness to accept belief in things for which we have no evidence, or which runs counter to evidence we have."

He added, "Faith does not tolerate opposing views, does not acknowledge inconvenient facts. Law schools stand in fundamental opposition to this."

I admire Dean Rudenstine's courage in speaking forthrightly on this subject.